Repentance & Worship
I have grown up over the years understanding both of these words in terms of my faith journey. Repentance is like step 1 to knowing the Lord. When I look at my life even now, I find myself needing to repent often. I also learned about worship at a pretty early age. My view of this concept as expanded over the years as I realize that I often worship more than God. I often worship myself. I choose me over Him way too often.
I was reading about when Hezekiah became king of Judah and he really wanted to follow God. On the first day of the first month of Hezekiah becoming king, he started to repair and restore the temple. He didn’t waste anytime. The people cleaning up and restoring the temple took 16 days and Hezekiah prepared a time of repentance and worship on the 17th day. Check this out…
27 Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. As the offering began, singing to the Lord began also, accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David king of Israel. 28 The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the musicians played and the trumpets sounded. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed.
29 When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshipped. (2 Chronicles 29:27-29 NIV)
I believe that repentance should happen pretty frequently. As I meander through my day, I sin quite often. It might be something stupid and seemingly insignificant. I see sin as “missing the mark”. I know that I’m not perfect and I miss the mark way too often. I’m so thankful for the Grace of God. He forgives me. He restores me and puts me back on my feet. I think it’s really pretty natural for worship to flow out of repentance. My heart is so thankful to be forgiven that I can’t help but say thanks. Worship is my hearts affection and my minds attention focused on the Lord. I don’t deserve to be in His Presence for worship, but He loves it when I come before Him with a heart of repentance and a heart for worship. This really should happen every day. I don’t need to go to church to repent or worship.
Pressing On!
Dwayne